SETI Archive

Ask a SETI astronomer about a science fiction movie and you’re bound to get an interesting review. Ask the astronomer what aliens visiting Earth will really look like and you’re bound to get an even more interesting answer. Center for SETI Research director Seth Shostak was asked…

Tabby’s star, known by it’s more technical name KIC 8462852, was discovered earlier this year by Yale University astronomer Tabetha “Tabby” Boyajian and drew instant attention for the strange, unprecedented dimming phenomenon astronomers observed in the star’s luminosity. According to data from NASA’s Kepler Space telescope, the star has…

Aliens! Exactly 234 planets full of them! OK, now that we’ve gotten THAT out of the way, the news is still pretty interesting, if not quite as dramatic … yet. Using data collected from 2.5 million stars, a graduate student searched for evidence of periodic brief bursts…

“I’m ain’t saying it’s aliens…” Apologies for use of the terribly blasé meme, but it seems entirely appropriate at the moment, considering how a controversial discovery in recent weeks had many astronomer’s hair standing on end… before it fell flat. The story about a new “wow signal” of possible alien origin first appeared…

The search for extraterrestrial life in deep space just got a lot more interesting. The SETI institute has announced the detection of a “strong signal” coming from the direction of a star which was previously recorded to be emitting radio signals. SETI hasn’t yet formally announced the…

It’s the mysterious message from outer space that has never been explained. The Wow! Signal – named for the comment written on a paper printout of the strange radio transmission from space – has baffled astronomers, scientists and alien hunters since 1977. Now a new team with…

Last week, citizen-scientist astronomers combing through data provided by the Kelper Space Observatory, identified what has been called “alien megastructures” orbiting a distant star called KIC 8462852. News outlets everywhere exploded with speculation and wonderment, printing and reprinting the same vague soundbites and out-of-context quotes, to the…

Best selling author Robert Kurson joins us this week to discuss his new book Pirate Hunters, a new adventure of danger and deep-sea diving, historic mystery and the search for a legendary pirate ship. We also include the latest on SETIs new funding, MoD cover ups, and 17th century French…

Harvard-educated astrophysicist Frank Drake is the father of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, so he isn’t exactly a skeptic on the question. He speculates that as many as 10,000 extraterrestrial civilizations may thrive in the Milky Way galaxy alone, and his famous equation has helped move of the…

Earlier this year, Internet discussion forums were ablaze with a somewhat bizarre debate over whether extraterrestrials can go to Heaven. But more serious theologians have less provincial questions to ask, and some of these questions were explored at NASA’s September astrobiology symposium, titled (appropriately enough) Preparing for…

Seth Shostak, director of the Center for SETI Research, wants us to answer a very important question: assuming we can overcome the logistic and technological obstacles and get a message to extraterrestrials, how can we be sure that message will be comprehensible to them? He writes: [W]hat’s the best…

Human beings have a tendency to picture themselves – or something very similar – when they use the word “life”. By that definition, the answer to the question “Is There Life on Earth?” is “Yes, of course there is” – as long as we’re talking about Earth…